OUR Russia announced that exchange of prisoners possiblewhich will include a newspaper journalist Wall Street Journal, Evan Gerskovichcan be considered after the trial.

Gerskovich was arrested last month after Federal Security Service Russia (FSB) accused him of collecting classified information for a military plant, Wall Street Journal And United States rejected as LIE.

“The issue of exchanging someone can be considered after the court passes a verdict specifically on this or that charge,” said Russia’s deputy foreign minister. Sergei Ryabkov.

OUR Gerskovich’s arrest in Russia, many were reminded of the case that unfolded earlier almost four decades, at the height of the Cold War. According to the WSJ report, Mr. Nikolay Danilovhis correspondent US News and World Reportwas accused of espionage 1986 KGB.

The FSB, successor to the KGB, arrested Mr. Gerskovich. According to the WSJ, at the time of his arrest, he was accredited to Russia by the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

How did it happen with the arrest of G. Gerskovichrespectively with that of Mr. Danilov flared international episode, driving Moscow and Washington during periods of high stress.

Mr. Danilov, who fell into a trap set by the KGB, was eventually released in a prisoner exchange, a tactic used by the US to free other prisoners in Russia.

In the decades following Mr. Danilov’s arrest, the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia became much more open to coverage by foreign journalists.

But under the Russian President Vladimir Putin –especially since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine – Moscow restricted the access of foreign journalists, many of whom fled the country.

OUR Gerskovich’s arrest this testifies to the extremely cold relations between Moscow and the West. Today his Cold War experience 88-year-old Nikolai Danilovwho lives with his wife in Massachusetts, has sparked interest as the latest American reporter arrested by Russia.

His case provides insight into the methods used by the Russian security services and the Central Intelligence Agency in an earlier era.

KGB trap

A year before his arrest, Mr. Danilov found an envelope in his mailbox in Moscow. Inside the envelope he found another letter addressed to US Ambassador to Moscow. When he opened this folder he found one third file addressed to William Casey, then director of the CIA. Inside this folder he found one seven page letter, manuscript shorthand. In the text, he immediately recognized the Russian word meaning “rocket“.

Mr. Danilov’s wife, Ruthin a conversation with the WSJ, they said that they feared that the letter was a fake and was written by the KGB in order to lure them into a trap and accuse them of espionage. They considered taking her to the nearest police station, but if the letter had been real, it would have put the writer at risk. They also considered burning the letter, but were concerned that it would destroy a message vital to the US.

The couple drove from their apartment to the US embassy. According to Danilova, this trip was the most terrible in her life, as they expected the KGB to stop them.

At the embassy, ​​the letter was handed over to the chief cultural attache, who handed it over to the CIA, which, according to his recollections, greatly complicated the further life of Mr. Danilov.

Mr. Danilov was an experienced man in Russia. Worked in Moscow in the 1960s. United Press International and in the early 1980s he returned as bureau chief for US News & World Report. His second mission to Moscow took place during a tense period between the KGB and the CIA.

At that time in Moscow, the CIA was collecting some of its most valuable information from so-called volunteers: Soviet scientists or security personnel who were dissatisfied with the Soviet system and gave up. hidden messages of secret information V locked cars of American diplomatswho were parked near the embassy.

US Embassy staff left the car windows open to facilitate such activities, he said. Milt Burdenformer CIA officer who helped oversee operations against the Soviet Union.

However, the CIA was limited in who it could recruit from among the Americans. After a series of congressional hearings by the CIA in 1977, adopted a ban policy exploitation of American journalists, clerics and humanitarian workers. A law passed in the same year established notification to Congress and approval by the President of the United States for the involvement of an American journalist in an intelligence operation.

There were cases when classified information actually came in their hands American journalistssince he was one of the few Americans living in Moscow at that time.

1981Soviet citizen joined American News Agency Newsroom in Moscow and left alone pack of 250 pages the reporter then passed it on to the CIA. The agency promised never to reveal the identity of the reporter.

The package was an unprecedented collection of information about Soviet nuclear weaponsso detailed that it forced the United States to revise its assessment of the entire Soviet nuclear program. The CIA never found out the identity of the author.

Then, four years later, Mr. Danilov delivered a new package that created a sensation at CIA headquarters. The Office of Weapons Science and Research was convinced that the same person, using the same shorthand method, wrote the 250-page text in 1981.

Director of the Soviet branch of the CIA in Langley Burton Gerberordered the Moscow residence of the CIA to hunt down the editor and the assistance of Mr. Danilov was requested.

Arrest of Danilov

In his memoirs, the journalist wrote that he was called to the embassy to talk with a man who, as he later learned, was the head of the CIA station in Moscow. The meeting took place inBubble”, a special room impenetrable to listening devices.

In an interview a month ago, Mr. Danilov said he was afraid to help. The embassy “sometimes acted in a way that put me in danger. They weren’t always the most careful people.” He added that he provided the name and phone number of the person he believed left the package.

Picking up on the subject, the CIA officials mentioned Mr. Danilov’s name twice: once in a telephone conversation with the Russian version of his name, and again in a letter. The KGB tracked down both messages, as they were able to intercept the phone call and mail.

Mr. Burden, a former CIA officer, stressed that the KGB found out because Mr. Danilov had probably made a mistake about who left the package. The person he mentioned was a source in the KGB.

Mr. Danilov realized that something had gone wrong. When he attended a press conference at the embassy, ​​an American diplomat took him aside and warned him to be careful, without explaining why. He noted that his fears subsided as the months passed, and in 1986 his Moscow mission came to an end.

According to US officials, the reason for his arrest was an event to which he paid little attention: FBI arrest operation against the Soviet Union in New York in 1986.

physicist, Gennady Zakharov, was an employee of the UN Secretariat. The FBI arrested him on a subway platform in Queens after he gave 1000 dollars in cash to an FBI informant who offered to sell him drawings depicting US Air Force jet engines. Since Mr. Zakharov’s work did not give him diplomatic immunity, he faced a lengthy prison sentence.

A week later, Mr. Danilov met with a Soviet acquaintance in a Moscow park to say goodbye before leaving the country. As a gift, Mr. Danilov brought him a package of his novels Stephen King. In return, Mr. Danilov received a package containing what he thought were clippings from regional Russian newspapers.

In fact, the meeting was a trap, and Mr. Danilov later found out what was in the package. two cards marked “top secret”.

A cage of KGB agents waited nearby and arrested Mr. Danilov within minutes. He was accused of espionage and sent to Lefortovo prisonin the same place where Mr. Gerskovich.

The White House initially refused to exchange Mr. Danilov for a Soviet physicist arrested by the FBI in New York, saying Mr. Danilov was a journalist and there was no basis for the exchange.

then Minister of Foreign Affairs George Shultz advocated for the exchange after learning of the complex history that led to Mr. Danilov’s contact with the CIA. “The CIA exposed Danilov to the KGB,” he wrote in his memoirs. “I strongly felt that we have a special obligation to Danilov because of what the CIA did to him.”

Mr. Bearden, the head of the CIA, doubts that the Russian security services believe that journalists such as Mr. Danilov or Mr. Gershkovich actually spied for the US, but that the KGB collected information about such journalists because they behave as the Russians think. makes them effective spies.

In particular, both spoke Russian fluently, traveled and interacted easily with Russians, and had no problem gathering information at a time when Russia was or was sensitive to its military secrets.

“In this world, intelligence gathering and journalism are one and the same,” Burden said. “So sometimes when they see a good reporter, they decide to target him.”